Switch servers if a stream won't play. Your server and progress are remembered on this device.
1. Liberty Diversity Depravity
In the middle of the 18th century - in England - an entirely surprising thing happened. Out of the Age of Enlightenment and Reason a monster was born - a Gothic obsession with monsters, ghouls, ghosts and things that go bump in the night. From restrained aristocratic beginnings to pornographic excesses, the Gothic revival came to influence popular art, architecture and literature.
2. The City and the Soul
As the Industrial Revolution promised more and more inexplicable wonders of the modern world, Gothic art and literature became both backward and forward looking. In her novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley warned of the dangers of how science could get out of control, while Sir Giles Gilbert Scott used Gothic architecture to memorialise Prince Albert as a medieval hero. Meanwhile, poets indulged in hallucinatory drugs to reach new Gothic heights. Where would it all end?
3. Blood for Sale: Gothic Goes Global
Gothic fantasy horror would be outstripped by real horror as the truth of mechanised warfare dawned on an innocent world in 1914. The language of Gothic would increasingly come to encapsulate the horrors of the 20th century - from Marx's analysis of 'vampiric' capitalism to Conrad's dark vision of imperialism and TS Eliot's image of The Wasteland, a Gothic narrative seemed to make more sense of the modern world more than any other.
Andrew Graham-Dixon explores how a group of 19th-century architects and artists spurned the modern age and turned to Britain's medieval past to create iconic works and buildings.
Genres: Documentary
Stars: Andrew Graham-Dixon
TV
World War II with Tom Hanks
2026
TV
The Reluctant Traveller with Eugene Levy
2023
TV
JANET JACKSON.
2022
TV
1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything
2021
TV
This Is Pop
2021
TV
History 101
2020
TV
Lost Treasures of Egypt
2019
TV
Mysteries at the Museum
2010
TV
30 for 30
2009
TV
How Do They Do It?
2006
TV
Doctor Who Confidential
2005
TV
MegaStructures
2004